China’s Finance Ministry will provide up to 14 billion yuan ($2.2 billion) in subsidies to buyers who purchase energy-saving products, including computers and air-conditioners, said a report by Xinhua on Monday, in its latest effort to save energy and raise market share of energy-saving products to more than 40 percent.
The European Union’s financial services commissioner, Michel Barnier, is ready to unveil his proposal for a single banking watchdog across the entire eurozone, said a report by AFP on Sunday, in a move that will give the European Central Bank (ECB) supervisory power over 6,000 eurozone banks in the process.
During any election, most political observers would want to see candidates engage in intense debate over policy issues, with matters of personality and character being pushed to the background. But in some ways, a candidate’s character may actually be more important than his policies when he assumes a country’s leadership; while the idea that you should vote for a leader based on his policy intentions could be inherently flawed.
The head of the Office for Fair Access (OFFA) in the U.K., a non-departmental public body dedicated to promoting equitable access for undergraduate applicants, has called on the top universities across the country to reach out to more talented students from poor homes, after the latest data showed that the proportion of poor students at elite universities had fallen.
Roughly 30 percent ($750 billion) of all medical spending in the U.S is wasted on unnecessary treatments, poor administration, fraud and other forms of pervasive inefficiencies each year, claimed a report by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) on Thursday, with nearly 75,000 deaths in 2005 believed could have been averted if every state had delivered care at the quality level of the best performing state.
In the European Central Bank’s (ECB) strongest commitment to date to tackle the European debt crisis, ECB President Mario Draghi pledged on Thursday to buy unlimited amounts of government bonds from struggling economies, though he admitted that there had been some dissention on the ECB board for the initiative.
According to the latest polls, public support for the U.S. Congress is now at a record low, with few believing that its members can overcome a prolonged period Of congressional paralysis & polarization . What if members of the US Congress, now returning from their summer recess, were to receive a “back to school” memorandum from concerned citizens? At a minimum, it should call on Congress and the president to converge on a multi-prong, multi-year policy initiative that makes simultaneous advances in six critical areas.
China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the nation’s top economic planning agency, has approved the construction of 25 new railway projects that will cost more than $126 billion over the next eight years and, more importantly, boost infrastructure investments to stabilise economic growth, reported the China Daily on Thursday.
Nearly 17 million Americans, or 5.5 percent of the population, have to skip meals or not eat for a day due to a lack of money to buy food, said a study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Wednesday, with a record 46.7 million Americans now enrolled for food stamps in the country.
Mitt Romney may not be a tax evader, but he certainly is a tax avoider on a grand scale. And the problem is not just Romney; writ large, his level of tax avoidance makes it difficult to finance the public goods without which a modern economy cannot flourish – and weakens the bonds of trust that hold a society together.
NEW YORK – Mitt Romney’s income taxes have become a major issue in the American presidential campaign. Is this just petty politics, or does it really matter? In fact, it does matter – and not just for Americans.
